Sunday, August 9, 2009

QUEEN OF KLOTZES

As a kid I was pretty athletic. Played all the kids games: tag, dodge ball, stick ball, “half-ball," baseball, softball, touch football with my brother and his friends….they tried regular football but stunk at it. Besides they didn’t have a field to play on, just the street. And I climbed trees. I once climbed some kind of metal tower but I can’t recall how in hell I got to that. During college I played tennis and basketball.

So I expected to remain a ‘player’ as I got older. And I was…. for a while. But ‘tripping’ became a sport I was getting really good at. Senior year in college, the Friday before I started student teaching on Monday, I tripped getting out of a car and went down on both knees. There was nothing to trip over. Started student teaching with gobs of makeup smeared over the torn skin of both knees. Sixth graders can be so cruel.

During the first few months of marriage I tripped over the stove (trying to get a too huge turkey into it), tripped up the stairs to our third floor garret and tripped into the refrigerator when it was open. An inkling of how my life was going glimmered in the background.

Over the years I have ‘tripped’ over too many items to mention and over too many ‘nothing’s there’ to mention. It was becoming a comedy routine, earning me the nickname, “Queen of the Klotzes” bestowed on me by a myriad number of friends.

It happened again this morning while walking the dog…. tripped over a curb that was not there.

When asked to describe what sport I do best, I now say, “I trip over light beams.”